Jdanehey

Anderson in 2007. Photo: Jürgen Fauth, via Wikimedia Commons

In the fall of 1990, years before he published Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace came on as an adjunct professor at Emerson College, in Boston. As D. T. Max writes in his biography, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story, this wasn’t such a hot time for Wallace. He was mentally unstable in those years, and actively ashamed of his latest collection of stories, Girl with Curious Hair; when the Emerson English department posted an advertisement for it, he tore it down. And teaching offered no reprieve from the problems he had with his writing and the culture at large. In a letter to Jonathan Franzen, he called his students “infants”: “you almost have to cradle their heads to help their necks support the skull’s weight.” Were the youth simply too enamored of TV’s easy charms? Max writes,

The students he was teaching made him feel the problem was worse than he had known. They were the Letterman generation he had imagined in [his short story] “My Appearance,” proud of their knowingness. “They’re all ‘television’ majors, whatever that means,” he complained to [David] Markson, adding that he’d had his wrist slapped by his department for “ ‘frustrating’ the students” with a DeLillo novel (he does not say which) by which he meant to wake them up … Wallace knew he did not want to stay at Emerson long.

Still, because he was fluent in TV, Wallace found himself popular with the students. And at least one of them came away emboldened by that “frustrating” experience with DeLillo: Paul Thomas Anderson, whose latest film, Inherent Vice, is in wide release this week.

Yesterday, on a new episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, Anderson—who had similar gripes with higher education and never finished college—spoke at length about his time with Wallace, whom he adored.

When I was at Emerson for that year, David Foster Wallace, who was a great writer who was not known then, was my teacher—he was my English teacher … It was the first teacher I fell in love with. I’d never found anybody else like that at any of the other schools I’d been to. Which makes me really reticent to talk shit about schools or anything else, because it’s just like anyplace—if you could find a good teacher, man, I’m sure school would be great.

“So why didn’t you stay?” Maron asks.

“He left,” Anderson says. He goes on:

I called him once. He was very generous with his phone number. He said “Call me if you got any questions,” and I called him a couple times ... I ran a few ideas by him about this paper that I was writing. I was writing a paper on Don DeLillo’s White Noise … I’d come up with a couple crazy ideas, and I don’t remember the conversation well, but I just remember him being real generous at like, you know, midnight the night before it was due … I’d love to go back and read [White Noise] again.

We’ll never know what Wallace thought of Anderson as a student—or if he even remembered teaching him. But Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story tells us he was aware of Anderson’s films, at least—he was a fan of Boogie Nights, which he told a friend was “exactly the story” he’d wanted to write. (He went on to write about porn himself in the essay “Big Red Son.”) He was less jazzed about Magnolia, though, which he found pretentious, hollow, and “100% gradschoolish in a bad way.”

Anderson wouldn’t disagree with that assessment, I suspect—in his WTF interview, he confesses that he’d cut the film entirely differently if he made it today. (“I wasn’t really editing myself,” he says. “It’s way too fucking long.”) If you’re not familiar with WTF, the Anderson episode is a great starting point: you can listen to the whole thing here.

Dan Piepenbring is the web editor of The Paris Review.

We write a lot about Wonder Woman. We write about her role(s) in nation making and myth making, her background tinged with exceptionalism and her femininity. We write about her big-screen potential, her small-screen potential, and any other mediums she might translate well to. (A serialized podcast, anyone?) What we don’t write about, or at least what we don’t write about often, are her foes—those vanquished, occasionally obliterated super villains who dared to mess with the princess of the Amazon. They are pushed to the periphery, partly hidden behind Diana Prince’s bright sun. Sometimes, however, a villain grinds his/her way back into the orbit, demanding that we take notice. The Blue Snowman is one of those villains.

First appearing in Sensation Comics #59, the Blue Snowman treads a very literal path: he is blue; he is a snowman, albeit one with very bushy eyebrows; and he puffs away at a pipe while plotting mayhem in Fair Weather Valley. A special “blue snow,” a chemical concoction designed to freeze everything and anything, is his weapon of choice. Money is his passion, and blackmail his way of obtaining it. That is, it would be if Wonder Woman hadn’t received a distress call from a friend in Fair Weather Valley, begging for the “marvelous Amazon resistance (4),” Wonder Woman. A swift kick, a lasso of truth whipped into action, and some near misses later, the Blue Snowman is apprehended and all is well.

A tried and true story, perhaps a throw-away story, except for one small twist that you had to know was coming: the Blue Snowman is not really a snowman at all. Behind the snowman suit of iron is Byrna Brilyant, the daughter of a scientific genius who intended to use his blue snow invention to somehow save humanity. (The mechanics of using a blue snow-like substance for good are left up to the readers’ imaginations. I imagine non-melting ice cream is somehow involved.) This game-changer occurs in the penultimate panel of the comic, and yet, to Wonder Woman and crew, it is not actually a game changer.  Byrna’s story thus ends not with a bang, not even with a whimper, but with the slightest sound of a pin dropping hundreds of miles away.

Although the reasoning can be guessed, we never learn why Byrna disguises herself as a man; why she chooses to go into crime instead of following in her father’s footsteps; or even why the Blue Snowman’s eyebrows are so bushy. Perhaps we learn her origin story in later comics, but perhaps we don’t. Like so many other super villains (and heroes, for that matter), it seems she can be found mostly in the white gutters between the comic panels. She is liminal, pushing boundaries and existing between boundaries.

She and her brethren don’t have to, though. Within the Edwin and Terry Murray Comic Book Collection, there are over four hundred boxes of comic books and counting. And within those comic books, there are thousands of characters ripe for synthesis, dissemination, and massive extrapolation. So here’s to those characters, those slightly quirky, serviceable villains who seek the limelight but somehow still fall short.

Post Contributed by Liz Adams, Research Services Library Assistant

The post Wonder Woman’s Wintry Foe: The Blue Snowman appeared first on The Devil's Tale.

Live Alone and Like It, Marjorie Hillis

Have you read this yet? It's perfect. It's from the 1930s, so it's wonderfully dated, and it's sprinkled with cautionary tales like The Story Of Miss X, who did not plan out her Saturday and ended up eating crackers grudgingly on the couch.

A Damn Cape With Fur On It

For burrowing into and avoiding eye contact.

The Channel Islands, Santa Barbara, CA

Send her there by herself. No one human lives on these islands. There are no roads or buildings. There is a special type of fox that only lives here. Release your spinster into her natural habitat.

Read more A Spinster’s Holiday Gift Guide: What To Buy For The Woman Who Loves Solitude at The Toast.

From Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World, a 1908 book—putatively nonfiction—by Clifton R. Wooldridge, “the Incorruptible Sherlock Holmes of America.”

In his agony [Devel] confessed that the only reason he confessed the murder was that he desired to get hanged, and that he preferred hanging to life with his wife. […]

“I desired to be hung,” said Devel, mournfully. “Life is not worth the living, and with my wife it is worse than death. If I had been hanged no other man would marry my wife, and I would save them from my fate. Many times have I planned to kill myself to escape her. That is sin, and I lack the bravery to kill myself, besides. If they will not hang me I must continue to live with my wife.”

Devel states, among other things, that these are the chief grievances against married life in general, and his wife in particular:

• She was slender, and became fat and strong.
• She was beautiful, and became ugly and coarse.
• She was tender, and grew hard.
• She was loving, and grew virulent.
• She grew whiskers on her chin.
• She called him “pig.”
• She wore untidy clothes, and her hair was unkempt.
• She refused to give him beer.
• Her breath smelled of onions and of garlic.
• She threw hot soup upon him.
• She continually upbraided him because there were no children.
• She scolded him in the presence of neighbors.
• She refused to permit him to bring his friends home.
• She came into his store and scolded him.
• She accused him of infidelity.
• She disturbed him when he slept in the garden on Sundays.
• She made him cook his own dinners.
• She spilled his beer when he drank quietly with friends.
• She told tales about him among the neighbors, and injured his business.
• She served his sausages and his soup cold, and sometimes did not have his meals for him when he came home.
• She did not make the beds nor clean the house.
• She took cards out of his skat deck.
• She talked continually, and scolded him for everything or nothing.
• She opened the windows when he closed them, and closed them when he opened them.
• She poured water into his shoes while he slept.
• She cut off his dachshund’s tail.

These things, he said, made him prefer to be hanged to living with her.

"It won't be like that for me," he had always insisted when it had come up in the past. "I'll be fine."

That was usually enough to satisfy anyone asking the question. But not enough for her.

"I don't even know that I qualify," he told her. "Aren't you being a little premature? Maybe I'm just the third, or the fourth Sexiest Man Alive."

She fixed Chris with a look.

"Well, I could be," he said. "You don't know that. There could be someone in...in Finland, or Mongolia or somewhere, who's just a little bit sexier than me."

The look didn't waver.

"Probably not, though," he admitted.

"But you have the dreams," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Not everyone who has the dreams is chosen," he said.

Read more Chris Hemsworth, Sexiest Man Alive at The Toast.

Previously in this series: Edna Krabappel.

The world owes a great deal to minor Simpsons characters, and I have taken it upon myself to periodically-yet-irregularly celebrate them as the spirit moves me. Today we honor Milhouse Van Houten. 

Milhouse Van Houten is the chump to end all chumps. His father was a chump. He comes from a long line of chumps. He was born a chump, and he'll die a chump. He knows his place on the social hierarchy -- higher than Martin, lower than Nelson -- as he explains to Bart, "We still get beat up, but at least we get an explanation."

Unfortunately for Milhouse, the explanation is usually "you're Milhouse."

There is a well-known scene on Parks and Recreation where Ron Swanson describes his coworker Jerry thusly: "A schlemiel is the guy who spills soup at a fancy party. A schlamazel is the guy he spills it on. Jerry is both the schlemiel and the schlamazel."

Milhouse, too, is both the schlemiel and the schlamazel. Even his best friend's dad refers to him as "that little weiner kid." He was born to play second banana.

Read more The Eternal Chump: Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse at The Toast.

Image: Albrecht Dürer, Christus als Schmerzensmann

On a personal note about the Daphne Awards…

The post-1945 era in literature is perhaps the spottiest in my literary history. The names that we associate most strongly with that era — Mailer, Roth, Updike, etc — are all of this macho pose, this high masculinity. They dominate our view of what the post-war novel is supposed to be, and everything else kind of hides in their shadow.

But long ago I decided I did not want to read literature where women were not women but just kind of walking around vaginas. And so that rules out all books by those macho guys.

(By the way, it’s okay to do this. People will freak out at you, oh my god how can you not have read Philip Roth he is like so important he is like a living god but you can just dismiss them, it is allowed.)

Reading through the nominees for the first ever Daphne Award, books published in 1963, was like an instant little history lesson. There were writers I already knew and loved, like Heinrich Böll and Hannah Arendt, and then there were writers I had never heard of, like Tarjei Vesaas.

It was a weird era. Coming out of World War II, so in some ways dominated by the voices of those who had fought in the war, and yet this younger generation who was merely raised during it scrambling to be heard. And coming in this still very stuck in the ’50s conservative era, the revolution of 1968 still to come. So things are shifting, things are seething. You have a lot of books about the war, trying to come to terms with it, and a lot of books about aftermath, and then some that are just like, oh my god can we talk about something else please?

Lots of bombast, and some big swinging dicks, but the novel that enchanted us all was Vesaas’s The Ice Palace, a book about surviving tragedy. And a nonfiction book, Primo Levi’s Reawakening, about surviving tragedy. And the poetry book, Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, about surviving tragedy. (And then the children’s book, about a lion who is almost shot and killed until he gets a gun is about…) We were all on different panels, it was an accidental theme for what we were all looking for, I guess.

And The Ice Palace is exquisite. It’s about two young girls who bond deeply and then tragedy strikes. It is weirdly able to capture the thought processes of young girls, their rhythms and their inner monologues. At first everyone on the panel complained, I think this is a weird translation. It’s so start and stop, so brittle. But no, that’s just what happens to your brain when the world takes from you what you love, things go start and stop, you can only take in so much at a time.

Our list of winners is not macho. There are no walking around vaginas, there’s no display of bravado. It’s a list of compassion and humanity and witnessing.

I can’t wait to do this again.

Come and get it come and get it come and get it...actual journal pages of mind from my teen years.

When you're as obsessive a journal-writer as I was—I wrote in one every day for probably 12 or more years—you eventually hit the need for filler. On one particularly morbid day in the life of a morbidly obese teenager, I decided to write down all the songs I wanted played at my funeral.

I'm not sure what gloomy thoughts I was having to make me feel so ready to...go into the light...but the songs are pretty hysterical. Was it my intention to force “Need a Man Blues” on my grieving extended family as a way of rubbing their noses in who the real Matthew was? (Horny, vindictive.)

And just imagine the people glancing at their watches during “Paninaro”.

I'm sure that Goonies soundtrack song would've provided great solace.

Not to mention the sheer timing of it all...there are about 80 songs (and many, many more), so that would have mourners seated for well over two hours, just listening to, you know, Grace Jones, Gene Loves Jezebel and the more traditional Madonna-and-Cyndi-Lauper combo.

Adolph Levitt was the developer of the automatic donut making machine and father of the modern American donut industry. In 1920 he founded the Doughnut Machine Company to make and market the machine across the United States and to sell donuts under the name “Mayflower.”  Soon the company began preparing and selling standardized mixes for the machine, and acquired bakeries to produce the donuts. In 1931, the company opened the first Mayflower donut shop in New York City; 17 other shops followed across the country, making the first retail doughnut chain. The company changed its name to the Doughnut Corporation of America, dominating the industry with a range of products and equipment.

In the 1940s the Doughnut Corporation of America distributed pamphlet style cookbooks encouraging the use of donuts as the main ingredient in a variety of recipes recommended for serving at a Halloween party. I found one of these in the Nicole Di Bona Peterson Advertising Cookbook Collection entitled How to Run a 1946 Halloween Party. Looking for a Halloween themed recipe for the RL Test Kitchen, I was drawn in by the idea of using donuts in place of other bread products. There are several intriguing recipes included in this pamphlet, but the one that stood out above the others was for Goblin Sandwiches. It is worth noting that despite the fact that the company name includes the word “doughnut,” the recipes use the more layman spelling, “donut.”

My only deviation from the core recipe was the substitution of toasted almonds for the requested Brazil nuts. Brazil nuts proved elusive in the two grocery stores I visited in preparation. A quick internet search showed that almonds (or most any other common tree nut) are an acceptable substitute. I toasted sliced almonds and chopped them using a small food processor rather than using the rolling pin technique described in the recipe.  Woe is the 1940s cook who has to roll her nuts finely using only a rolling pin.  Also worth noting is that an “avocado pear” is really just another name for avocado.

Once the nuts were toasted and chopped this recipe came together very quickly with only five ingredients. I’ve always wondered what Deviled Ham was like having seen the cans in the grocery store.  Now I can tell you that the smell is not unlike dog food and the consistency is finely minced meat with a layer of yellowish water on top. I added the chopped avocado and almonds and mixed well.  The instructions said to “season highly” with Worchester sauce, which gave me a moment of pause.  I added a teaspoon, reasoning that more could be added to taste.  Once everything was mixed together it was quite green in color.  Cans of Deviled Ham are actually quite small at only 4.25 ounces each.  The cup of chopped almonds and an entire avocado actually were much larger in volume in this recipe, which probably diluted the pet food like taste of the ham. I imagine that the strong green of the avocado inspired the goblin name.  I spread the filling onto a typical plain cake donut sliced in half, making the traditional sandwich shape.

My willing taste testers included my husband Steve and colleague Josh, both of whom profess willingness to try anything.  Steve said that the filling was quite bland and was over shadowed by the sweet taste of the donut. When he tried just a spoonful of the filling he reconfirmed its blandness and added several more shakes of Worchester sauce to the mix. Josh also confirmed that the sweetness of the donut overpowered the taste of the spread.  He acknowledged the crunch of the nuts and an occasional chunk of avocado, but felt that it was better suited for little rye toast rather than a donut. Should you decide to test this recipe at home, I recommend cutting and adding the chopped avocado as close to serving time as possible to retain the bright green color, which turns to an olive drab over time.

One other recipe to note is the Donut Fruit Salad.  I really wanted to make this recipe as well, but I have to admit that I could not follow the recipe and visualize what the end product should resemble.  Perhaps you, gentle reader, might have better luck.  We’d love to see if you can successfully follow the directions in this recipe and scare up a good time with this Donut Fruit Salad.  Tweet your pictures to @hartmancenter and @rubensteinlib.

Besides the notable recipes, this small pamphlet also includes a number of Halloween Party activities to add spooky fun to your celebration.  Ideas include making place holders with donuts and donut horse centerpieces.  Both use quite a few toothpicks to achieve the desired effect, so make sure you have plenty on hand.  One game idea is called Donuts on a String and calls for contestants to try and eat a donut dangling on a string while their hands are tied behind their backs.  “First to finish and whistle the first two lines of ‘Dixie’ wins.”

Perhaps these recipes and activities will give you some ideas for a last minute Halloween party tonight.  Just make sure you have plenty of donuts on hand and have a spooktacular night! Happy Halloween from the RL Test Kitchen!

 Every Friday between now and Thanksgiving, we’ll be sharing a recipe from our collections that one of our staff members has found, prepared, and tasted. We’re excited to bring these recipes out of their archival boxes and into our kitchens (metaphorically, of course!), and we hope you’ll find some historical inspiration for your own Thanksgiving.

Post contributed by Jacqueline Reid Wachholz, Director, John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History

The post Rubenstein Library Test Kitchen: Goblin Sandwiches (1946) appeared first on The Devil's Tale.

Cruel fate.

Yesterday’s journey into the macabre (via Thackeray) was so lousy with skulls and black cats and seasonal pageantry that I thought, Hell, let’s do it again.

The public domain is teeming with hoary, scary fare for Halloween. Time was, you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting something spooky.

I present to you, then, a few morbid selections from George Wither’s A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne: Quickened with Metrical Illustrations, both Moral and Divine; and disposed into Lotteries, that Instruction and Good Counsel, may be furthered by an Honest and Pleasant Recreation, from 1635. Wither wrote verses to accompany these allegorical plates, which were originally by Crispin van Passe from earlier in the seventeenth century. The allegories depicted here aren’t always easy to parse, but I think we can safely assume that they instruct humankind in the evasion of sin. If you sin, after all, your hand may wind up mounted to a stick, or you may become like the caged cat, beset by the mice you once terrorized.

INT. THE MURRY'S home. NIGHT.

MRS WHATSIT: hello
is anybody home
MRS. MURRY: excuse me?
MRS WHATSIT: i'm coming in for sandwiches and to take some of your sheets
also your children, i will be taking them
MRS. MURRY: you're what?
MRS WHATSIT: oh by the way your husband is in space
and your science is terrible
just terrible
you have barely any science and your husband is trapped in space
i'll just take these two children and those sheets over there
bye

MEG: where are we going
MRS WHATSIT: shut up and just enjoy the ride, baby
MEG: i was just wondering if--
MRS WHATSIT: well don't
MEG: don't...wonder?
MRS WHATSIT: don't ask me stupid questions
I used to be a goddamn star, Meg
like in the SKY
what did you used to be
a seventh-grader?
lets compare those two things okay
MEG: i'm sorry, i didn't--
MRS WHATSIT: everyone here who used to be an actual fucking star in the sky raise your hand
thats what i thought

Read more A Wrinkle In Time: Dirtbag Mrs. Whatsit at The Toast.

BURNING THE GROUND EXCLUSIVE 1987

“The Devil Is An Englishman” is a 1986 single by Sreamin’ Lord Byron featuring Thomas Dolby and Timothy Spall taken from the soundtrack for the film Gothic.

In Ken Russell’s film Gothic, poet Lord Byron was played by Gabriel Byrne. Thomas Dolby’s soundtrack for the film closes with the song “The Devil Is An Englishman”, which prominently features samples of Byrne’s dialogue from the film, much of it shouted — hence, the half-serious “featuring Screamin’ Lord Byron” credit on the single and the soundtrack album.

SIDE A:
The Devil Is An Englishman (Extended Version) 6:00
Artist – Screamin’ Lord Byron Featuring Thomas Dolby and Timothy Spall
Remix – Martin Rushent
Vocals – Timothy Spall

SIDE B:
Fantasmagoria 2:11
Artist – Thomas Dolby

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Virgin ‎– VS 937-12
Format: Vinyl, 12″, 45 RPM
Country: UK
Released: 1987
Genre: Electronic
Style: Synth-pop

CREDITS:
Composed By – Thomas Dolby
Producer – Clif Brigden, Thomas Dolby

NOTES:
Both tracks taken from the soundtrack album “GOTHIC”

Find The 12″ On DISCOGS

EQUIPMENT USED:
Turntable: Pro-Ject Debut III
Cartridge: Ortofon Super
Stylus: Ortofon OM Stylus 30
Platter: Pro-Ject Acryl-It platter
Speed Control: Pro-Ject Speed Box S
Phono Pre-amp: Bellari VP130 Tube Phono Preamp
Tube: Tung-Sol 12AX7ECC803-S Gold Electron Tube
Soundcard: ESI Juli@
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Brother MFC-6490CW Professional Series Scanner

SOFTWARE USED:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removeal: ClickRepair (DeClick Level 3)
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
MP3 (320kbps)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

Username: btg
Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.

Never-seen footage of the late gay-rights icon Harry Hay talking about how he figured out he must be gay, and Guy de Maupassant had a lot to do with it...

If you enjoyed that as much as I did, check out the Kickstarter campaign for Free for All, which is about the important of public (or pubic, in the case of Hay's story) libraries!

Stephen Lurie's previous work for The Toast can be found here.

The modern economy requires new twists on the classic meet-and-greet office games. Use these great ice breakers to help new hires contend with the realities and demands of the ‘10s work environment, streamline workflows, and identify HR challenges.

Trust Fall

Original versions of the “trust fall” had one blindfolded participant fall backward into the arms of a group of their peers. The game was designed to show that your co-workers would be there for you when you fall: that you can trust them.

Twist the ratio and the game more effectively reflects the modern workplace. Have six (6) blindfolded participants fall backwards into the open arms of one (1) coworker. Both roles quickly learn that everyone must rely on themselves--and that the safety net won’t catch them if they get fired.

Candy Bowl

It used to be commonplace to pass around sugary treats as a form of social bonding. In the Candy Bowl game, different personal information was assigned to different pieces of candy in the bowl: red M&M, for example, would be favorite movie or blue Skittle would be favorite concert. Participants chose candy from the bowl at random and then had to share the information associated with that candy.

Replace candy with variants of uncooked beans (no-calorie option.) Assign the following to each type: number of Twitter followers, Klout Score, Tinder matches, banking PIN number, Social Security number, and Gmail password. If participants share any of the last three, remove them from the activity and send them directly to HR for training. Privacy and identity theft are not to be taken lightly.

Read more The New Office Ice Breakers at The Toast.

Lorelai Gilmore (Phil Gordon)

"Philippa was a lively personage, infamous for her indecision, and loved wherever she went due to her extreme beauty, mirth and comicality." Sounds about right.

Rory Gilmore (Anne of Green Gables)

A weakness for reading and braids and hypersensitivity.

Paris Gellar (Gilbert Blythe)

I should not have to remind you that Paris and Rory are canon.

Read more Jess Mariano Is Josie Pye: Your Definitive Character Guide To Stars Hollow and Avonlea at The Toast.

Kylie's a solid live singer with an excellent pop voice. Here, she glides through the ethereal “I Believe In You” on her Aphrodite Tour...

BURNING THE GROUND EXCLUSIVE 1984

“Monster” is a 1984 US only promotion single released by Schneider frontman of the rock band The B-52’s. The track was taken from Schneider’s first solo album Fred Schneider and the Shake Society. Kate Pierson, also from The B-52’s, performs backing vocals on this track.

“Monster” is one of my favourite tracks, as there is an innuendo implied, although Fred states in the disclaimer that this wacky space-age song with tag team guitars that it’s about a dinosaur walking around in his polka dot PJ’s and not what some dirty-minded people might think. Think about it: “There’s a monster in my pants and it does a nasty dance. When it moves in and out. Everybody starts to shout. Monster aah!”

The music video was actually banned from MTV in 1983. The video stars Keith Harring and Chris and Tina from the talking heads & tom tom club and the late Drag performer, playwright, and actor, artist Ethyl Eichelberger.

SIDE A:
Monster 3:30

SIDE B:
Boonga (The New Jersey Caveman) 4:45

VINYL GRADE:
Vinyl: Near Mint
Sleeve: Near Mint

RELEASE INFORMATION:
Label: Warner Bros. Records ‎– PRO-A-2224
Format: Vinyl, 12″, Promo, 33 ⅓ RPM
Country: US
Released: 1984
Genre: Electronic
Style: Synth-pop

CREDITS:
Co-producer – Bernie Worrell
Mixed By – Steve Peck, Ted Currier

NOTES:
From the LP “Fred Schneider & The Shake Society”

Find The 12″ On DISCOGS

EQUIPMENT USED:
Turntable: Pro-Ject Debut III
Cartridge: Ortofon Super
Stylus: Ortofon OM Stylus 30
Platter: Pro-Ject Acryl-It platter
Speed Control: Pro-Ject Speed Box S
Phono Pre-amp: Bellari VP130 Tube Phono Preamp
Tube: Tung-Sol 12AX7ECC803-S Gold Electron Tube
Soundcard: ESI Juli@
Record Cleaning: VPI HW 16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Artwork Scans: Brother MFC-6490CW Professional Series Scanner

SOFTWARE USED:
Recording/Editing: Adobe Audition 3.0 (Recording)
Down Sampling: iZotope RX Advanced 2
Artwork Editor: Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Removeal: ClickRepair (DeClick Level 3)
FLAC/MP3 Conversion: dBpoweramp
M3U Playlist: Playlist Creator

RESTORATION NOTES:
All vinyl rips are recorded @ 32bit/float
FLAC (Level Eight)
MP3 (320kbps)
Artwork scanned at 600dpi

Username: btg
Password: burningtheground

You can help show your support for this blog by making a donation using PayPal. Thank you for your help.

Previously in this series: Not Allowed In The Deep End -- Ralph Wiggum.

The world owes a great deal to minor Simpsons characters, and I have taken it upon myself to periodically-yet-irregularly celebrate them as the spirit moves me. Today we honor Edna Krabappel.

There's a scene in Some Like It Hot where Marilyn Monroe's character (Sugar Kane!) smiles heartbreakingly at Tony-Curtis-as-Josephine and explains why she's running away from men:

I'm not very bright, I guess, just dumb. If I had any brains, I wouldn't be on this crummy train with this crummy girls' band. I used to sing with male bands but I can't afford it anymore. That's what I'm running away from. I worked with six different ones in the last two years. Oh, brother! I can't trust myself...All they have to do is play eight bars of 'Come to Me, My Melancholy Baby' and my spine turns to custard. I get goose pimply all over and I come to 'em, every time. That's why I joined this band. Safety first. Anything to get away from those bums. You don't know what they're like. You fall for 'em and you really love 'em - you think this is gonna be the biggest thing since the Graf Zeppelin - and the next thing you know, they're borrowing money from you and spending it on other dames and betting on horses. Then one morning you wake up, the guy is gone, the saxophone's gone, all that's left behind is a pair of old socks and a tube of toothpaste, all squeezed out. So you pull yourself together. You go on to the next job, the next saxophone player. It's the same thing all over again. You see what I mean? Not very bright. I can tell you one thing - it's not gonna happen to me again - ever. I'm tired of getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

This is the story of Mrs. Krabappel's life; one fuzzy lollipop after the other. She's one of the only characters in the series who hasn't spent her whole life in Springfield. She's been to college -- Bryn Mawr! -- and now she's in a nowhere town teaching "a bunch of dead-eyed fourth graders while [my] husband runs naked on a beach somewhere with [our] marriage counselor."

He apparently takes some time off from tropical bliss to mess with her; in season 3's "Bart The Lover," Mrs. Krabappel's car breaks down and her mechanic tells her "Bingo, bango, sugar in the gas tank. Your ex-husband strikes again." The casual bingo, bango delivery is perhaps the cruelest touch of all; she can't catch a break.

Read more “I’ve Been Calling Her Krandal”: Edna Krabappel’s Finest Moments at The Toast.

If you are a woman under 28 and a man over 40 says to you:

that you have "an old soul,"

anything about your "zest for living,"

that what he likes best about you is your "curiosity" (or worse, your "boundless" curiosity),

anything vaguely complimentary about your "energy," "enthusiasm," or "passion,"

any sentence that begins with "My wife used to,"

that you're not like other women your age,

that he thinks of himself as "always learning,"

Read more Comments From Men Over 40 To Run Away From at The Toast.

It’s easy
Pay attention

Notice little particulars about a person
Exactly not the kind of thing that would be announced with fanfare on Facebook

It could be her subtle flair for fashion, having a periwinkle scarf around her neck just so
It could be how he walks (like the Buddha, not wobbling)

It could be an act of kindness he’d long ago forgotten but that carried that bodhisattva scent
It could be a poem she sends you (and she hadn’t ever written poems till three months ago)

It could be his passion for Thomas Merton or Budapest
It could be the six pages of a hand-written letter she sent you in the mail

It could be his strong soothing voice you wish people could hear daily on the radio
It could be the way she makes her hair into a work of art

It could be the creme brûlée she brings to potlucks
It could be his appreciation for the cheerful monastics

It could be how he listens so warmly to strangers like they went to grade school together
It could be her darling expression “Bless your heart” which tempts you to want to propose to her

It could be his supporting the troops-now-at-home-and-needy thirty hours a week
It could be the way she touches and moves a limb to lessen pain

The senses will show you the way
To become skilled in offering compliments

Louisa May Alcott

We had typed our stories in the computer lab, and I remember thinking that mine looked professional. I was also pretty sure it was excellent. Fiction writing was not my strong suit—I would never have ranked myself up there with Travis, whose stories were universally regarded as hilarious, or Vanessa, whose imagination gave birth to miraculous plots of which I was in awe. But this one (which, despite its modern setting, bore the strong stamp of Louisa May Alcott’s influence) was better than my usual offerings, I had worked harder on it, and I was eager to see the teacher’s glowing comments.

But here is what she wrote: “This sentence does not make sense. This is not what ‘admire’ means. Find another word in the thesaurus.”

Here is what I had written: “She’d admire to have you.” I knew it was accurate because Louisa May Alcott used this exact construction in An Old-Fashioned Girl, in the course of a house-party invitation. In my story, someone was being invited to a sleepover. I was indignant. I went home, spent a long time finding the passage in question, and then brought the book into class. But then the teacher was sick, and out for a few days, and I forgot to make my point.

If you enter that particular construction into a search engine now, you will find much vindicating evidence.

For our sakes she should admire to have you; but on your own account, she would have you remain where you are. —James Henley Thornwell, 1834

We should admire to have you visit us, and eat some of our new fashioned peas or Osage plumbs as they are called. —Ellen D. Goodnow, 1856

If you can do anything I should admire to have you for they would be very acceptable about this time for the weather although not very cold is not much like summer. —John Webster Chase, 1863

I’d admire to have you come. And I can give you some real Cap’c cooking like you have never tasted before. —Good Housekeeping, 1922

It is a very pretty house and I would admire to have you see it. —Lyle Saxon, 1939

The holy saints & angels know how much I should admire to have you as support for me in my brief span of my remaining academic life. —Garnett Sedgewick, 1940

“We’d admire to have you eat a bite with us,” Morgan said. —Popular Science, 1956

I could go on.

Maybe I should write that teacher, but somehow I’m not sure the situation will arise again. And editorially, she may have had a perfectly valid query: Why, she might have asked, was a ten-year-old protagonist in the year 1991 using nineteenth-century vernacular? Well, for that, at any rate, I would have had a watertight answer: my character had taffy-pulling and quilting to do. Obviously.